Carly watch: Former HP CEO heading to Coach Madden’s turf for her first play

She’s got Hall of Famer former coach John Madden’s fancy Goal Line Productions in Pleasanton lined up, the invitations are out, and you can mark the date: almost exactly a year until the 2010 election, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina looks ready to officially enter the U.S. Senate race against Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer.

So we got Tri-Valley’s president and CEO Toby Brink on the phone to get the skinny: is it really the official Carly Campaign Debut?

“That is my understanding,” he said. “They’re being a bit coy about an announcement, but we’re pretty sure we know what it is.”

Interesting: choosing the East Bay’s Democratically-dominated Tri-Valley area that includes Livermore and Pleasanton — instead of, say, a GOP-rich enclave like San Diego/Inland Empire — sounds like a general election strategy to us.

“She wanted to do in this region to focus on innovation in technology,” Brink said. “And we have a lot of start-ups that the Business Council is working with. I pitched to them to profile a couple of companies that are early stage start-ups,” he said, kind of a “Joe the Plumber story, technology version.”

Brink also notes that the Tri-Valley area is “the headquarters of Chevron, Safeway and Ross, and we have two of the pre-eminent national laboratories (Lawrence Livermore and Sandia)” right in the backyard.

Plus, he says she looks to be a good fit for the region: “We have a highly educated population — 42 percent of our residents have a BA or higher — and that’s higher than Silicon Valley,” he said.

So now about 200 folks are expected to the Fiorina event at the facility where Madden, the famed broadcaster, films his TV commercials (it doesn’t mean the coach is a Fiorina endorser; he’s not much of a politics guy, we’re told.)

Fiorina spokeswoman Beth Miller, asked whether Fiorina will now officially take the plunge, was more than coy:

“I really can’t say…she will have an announcement. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

But does Fiorina even have a campaign manager at this point?

Marty Wilson, Sacramento-based fundraiser and strategist extraordinaire for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, “is pretty much running the campaign,” said Miller. Wilson, Miller’s partner in the Sacramento-based Wilson-Miller Communications “is functioning as the campaign manager, lead consultant, general consultant, whatever. All of those are accurate. Marty doesn’t get hung up on titles.”

Already, Fiorina’s very focused opponents say she shouldn’t get hung up on making it through the primary.

Eric Schultz, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is already churning out the press releases — and quotes — on Fiorina’s rollout.

“This is one of the worst candidate debuts I’ve seen across the country,” he told us. “This is someone who faced a whole lot of serious questions on her voting record and changed her story on it…and was named one of the worst CEOs in history. She’s been getting hit from her primary opponent — while her website drew national criticism and mocking. It doesn’t get much worse.”

Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore of Irvine, Fiorina’s primary opponent, argues Fiorina’s erosion in the last Field Poll is just the start of her troubles – especially when GOP voters learn her positons on issuues.

California GOP chair Ron Nehring says indeed, the party is setting up debates for its GOP primary candidates — that’s gubernatorial and U.S. Senate — at its March spring convention in Northern California.

Whatever happens, Nehring says, one thing is clear: CA Republicans are fired up about the 2010 U.S. Senate race, a midterm election they think they can win. “At last weekend’s Tea Party in San Diego, we had thousands of folks on a beautiful Sunday,” he said. “And by far, the name that got the loudest boos was “Boxer.”